Broker Fails to Get Richies Drunk Enough to Buy Apartments

The New York Times follows a real estate broker who plies rich clients with booze during a multi-unit condo crawl. "Just as a few drinks may coax timid traders onto a dance floor," the paper suggests, "it could help them muster the courage to buy multimillion-dollar apartments." The hashing expedition starts cheerily ("Alcohol brings everyone together... Don’t be shy") but ends unhappily, with the increasingly drunken shoppers exhibiting the fault-finding behavior common to alcoholics ("He studied the vents and thought the work looked unfinished") and no apparent sales. "It feels like my grandparents’ house" slurs a 24-year-old trader as the Times draws the curtain, leaving us to imagine their bitter recriminations and (after all the "Blanton's bourbon" and "Virginia ham sandwiches" consumed) regretful vomiting.